We are finally ready. Harvey and I will know tomorrow. I can’t believe it. Both of us are so anxious that we keep snapping at one another and anyone who happens to be around us. Poor Eric. Harvey almost bit his head off for nothing. He felt bad about it afterwards, like Harv always does when he loses his temper. Then he tried to make it up to him by repeatedly complimenting Eric on his work.
I can’t blame Harvey for being a little edgy. This is it. This is what we’ve been waiting for.
What was Bruce talking about? What were they waiting for? Jennifer noted the date. Nine months ago. So much had happened to her in the last nine months — leaving Harvey, moving to California — but when Jennifer read what happened the next day, she realized how insignificant the changes in her life had been. Bruce’s words put her own private world back in perspective, and for the first time in many months she felt the hollow pang of inadequacy ripple anew from the distant recesses of her mind.
“My God,” she uttered out loud. “It can’t be.”
She swallowed and reread the page, sure that she had misunderstood the words:
I am not ashamed to say that tears keep running down my face as I write this. Powerful emotions keep crashing over me. It’s more than I can take. It’s more than I ever expected to hear. But I’m getting ahead of myself, so let me go back a moment. I’ll try to be as precise as possible for the sake of posterity.
Harvey and I wanted to see the Trian results for ourselves. After all, this is hardly the kind of thing you wait for the lab boys to send you a report on. So we walked toward the lab with the controlled rush of school children heading for recess under a teacher’s watchful eye. Winston seemed surprised to see us. He asked what we were doing in the lab. I told him we wanted the results for 443t90. Why the rush? Winston asked. Harvey became a little impatient, which was certainly understandable under the circumstances, and told him to hand over the file. Winston did.
We were too nervous to open it in the lab so we did our “trying not to run” bit back down to my office. Janice stopped us on the way to ask a question, but we just blew right by her. She looked at us like we had lost our minds. We hustled into my office and closed the door. Harvey handed me the file. I can’t look, he said.
I opened it. Trian was HIV negative. His T cell count was almost normal. My heart leapt into my throat while Harvey stood without moving. I think he was in shock. We called in Eric and told him the news. He and I began to shout and jump around like Super Bowl champs, but not Harv. He just stood to the side and looked off at nothing. What’s the matter? I asked him. We’ve done it.
Harv shook his head. Not so fast, he said. We have a lot still to be done.
But look at the results, I insisted. He’s HIV negative.
Harvey: Yes, but for how long? It’s encouraging but what do we know for sure? We have to test him again.
Me: But this is just what we need to get the place going again. We needed this boost, this kick in the ass. The PHS will give us more money now. Our grant will have to be extended.
Harvey: Timing is everything.
Me: What does that mean?
Harvey: It means that we have to keep this quiet. Can you imagine the uproar if such news got out? The press, the scrutiny? We’ll lose our anonymity.
Eric said nothing.
Harvey: No, my friends, for right now, we should tell no one. We will reveal little bits — enough to maintain interest and finances — but not enough for anyone to know for sure. In the meantime let’s make sure everything is well documented. Send the sample to Bangkok on Friday.
Jennifer could not believe what she was reading. HIV negative? They had turned someone who had been HIV positive back into HIV negative. The disclosure hit her like a heavyweight.
That was probably optimistic thinking, but the evidence was right in front of her. They had done it. Somehow they had found a cure for the AIDS virus. And Harvey had never mentioned it to her.
It was all so unbelievable. The startling revelation wearied her. She put the file down and closed her eyes. She wanted just to rest them for a few minutes before continuing to read, but exhaustion got the better of her. She slid into the cusp between consciousness and slumber and her head tilted back. One question kept gnawing at the base of her brain as she glided down into a deep, sound sleep: Why had Bruce committed suicide right after mailing out this packet?
Ralph Edmund, the county coroner, rolled the stretcher past Max. Ralph looked like a coroner — to be more precise, a mortician. Sallow skin, tall, thin body, thin black hair, long fingers. On the other hand he never dressed like a mortician. He wore loud colors, polyester prints, and ostentatious gold jewelry. He also did not act like a mortician. Ralph was emotional, loud, uncouth as all hell. Even better, he had the charming habit of chewing tobacco and spitting the black-yellow juice wherever and whenever he saw fit.
“I want the autopsy done right away,” Max whispered to the coroner.
“Is that why you called me down here personally?” Ralph asked.
Max nodded. “Check everything.”
“Okay,” Ralph replied, a thick ball of tobacco bulging in his cheek. “I’ll get to it later this afternoon.”
“Now. Right now. And get all the blood samples you can out of him. I want you to run a full battery of tests on him.”
“Like what?”
“We’ll go over it later.”
“Hey, Twitch, why you whispering? He’s not going to wake up. Ha!”
“Hilarious. Just find out what killed him.” Max turned and moved toward Harvey. The doctor looked pale and exhausted. “Where’s Martino’s roommate?”
“Kiel Davis? I had him moved to another room. He’s being sedated.”
“I want to speak with him.”
“Later,” Harvey replied. He shook his head. “My God, I can’t believe this.”
“What’s to believe?” Max asked, flipping through his notepad. “There was no visible trauma, no blood, no stab or gunshot wounds, no signs of a struggle. The victim was a patient at an AIDS clinic, so we can assume he was in poor health. All signs point to death by natural causes, right?”
Harvey did not reply right away. “Ricky Martino was no angel,” he said at last. “He was an intravenous drug abuser. He used to push drugs at a local high school.”
“Irrelevant. How sick was he?”
“Actually,” Harvey replied, “Martino was cured.”
“He didn’t have AIDS?”
“Not anymore. His last test showed he was HIV negative. He was still undergoing more treatment, of course, but he was on his way to a full recovery.”
“Interesting,” Max said.
“To be frank,” Harvey continued, “I wasn’t crazy about treating Martino.”
“Why not?”
“Because he was a lousy candidate. For one thing, he was a heroin addict.”
“Then why did you?” Sara asked. “With so many good candidates willing to give anything a try, why would you choose Martino?”
“Because we wanted a cross section of patients — not just gay men. So Bruce brought Martino in. Bruce liked Martino. He believed in him.”
“And you didn’t?” Sara continued.
Harvey shrugged. “Intravenous drug abusers, by and large, are a rather sordid group. I confess I’m no big fan of treating IVDAs — not for any moral reason but simply because they are unreliable data. Addicts cannot be trusted. On top of that, most of them are already unhealthy from a lifetime of abusing their bodies, which makes their chances of fighting the disease that much slimmer.”
“Then what do you think killed him, Doctor?” Max asked.
